Rick Giles’s photographs work as a form of social documentation. For the project Hitch (2001), the photographer hitchhiked for two years across the United States, photographing the people who picked him up. Thanks to the close relationships he established with his subjects, the resulting images are spontaneous and intimate, a quality often missing in portraits of strangers. Giles is a participant in his own scenario. Never voyeuristic, his projects are as much ones of personal exploration – of himself and his own relation to the environment – as they are of America.

For Shenandoah (2002), Giles dealt with the droves of American city dwellers who head to the countryside in search of respite from overcrowded city living. For the duration of the project, he camped in the woods, picturing how people interacted with nature, and how far they were ready to embrace the wild. Giles’s practice is embedded in the American photographic tradition of social documentary – from William Eggleston to Stephen Shore. In The Classifieds (2003-ongoing), Giles explores life in New York through the classified section of the Village Voice. Through photographing those who place the advertisements, and juxtaposing the image against the advertisement itself, Giles delves into the innermost mechanisms of the metropolis.

Rick was born in England 1969 and now lives in New Milford, Connecticut.